Have you ever seen a very old chest, black with age, and
covered with outlandish carved ornaments and curling leaves?
Well, in a certain parlor there was just such a chest, handed
down from some great-grandmother. Carved all up and down it, ran
tulips and roses-odd-looking flourishes-and from fanciful
thickets little stags stuck out their antlered heads.

Right in the middle of the chest a whole man was carved. He
made you laugh to look at him grinning away, though one
couldn't call his grinning laughing. He had hind legs like
a goat's, little horn on his forehead, and a long beard.
All his children called him "General
Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs."
It was a difficult name to pronounce and not many people get to
be called by it, but he must have been very important or why
should anyone have taken trouble to carve him at all?

However, there he stood, forever eyeing a delightful little
china shepherdess on the table top under the mirror. The little
shepherdess wore golden shoes, and looped up her gown fetchingly
with a red rose. Her hat was gold, and even her crook was gold.
She was simply charming!

Close by her stood a little chimney-sweep, as black as coal,
but made of porcelain too. He was as clean and tidy as anyone can
be, because you see he was only an ornamental chimney-sweep. If
the china-makers had wanted to, they could just as easily have
turned him out as a prince, for he had a jaunty way of holding
his ladder, and his cheeks were as pink as a girl's. That
was a mistake, don't you think? He should have been dabbed
with a pinch or two of soot.

He and the shepherdess stood quite close together. They had
both been put on the table where they stood and, having been
placed there, they had become engaged because they suited each
other exactly. Both were young, both were made of the same
porcelain, and neither could stand a shock.

Near them stood another figure, three times as big as they
were. It was an old Chinaman who could nod his head. He too was
made of porcelain, and he said he was the little
shepherdess's grandfather. But he couldn't prove it.
Nevertheless he claimed that this gave him authority over her,
and when
General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs
asked for her hand in marriage, the old Chinaman had nodded
consent.

"There's a husband for you!" the old Chinaman told the
shepherdess. "A husband who, I am inclined to believe, is made of
mahogany. He can make you Mrs.
General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs.
He has the whole chest full of silver, and who knows what else
he's got hidden away in his secret drawers?"

"But I don't want to go and live in the dark chest,"
said the little shepherdess. "I have heard people say he's
got eleven china wives in there already."

"Then you will make twelve," said the Chinaman. "Tonight, as
soon as the old chest commences to creak I'll marry you off
to him, as sure as I'm a Chinaman." Then he nodded off to
sleep. The little shepherdess cried and looked at her true love,
the porcelain chimney-sweep.

"I'll do just what you want me to," the little
chimney-sweep told her. "Let's run away right now. I feel
sure I can support you by chimney-sweeping."

"I wish we were safely down off this table," she said.
"I'll never be happy until we are out in the big, wide
world."

He told her not to worry, and showed her how to drop her
little feet over the table edge, and how to step from one gilded
leaf to another down the carved leg of the table. He set up his
ladder to help her, and down they came safely to the floor. But
when they glanced at the old chest they saw a great commotion.
All the carved stags were craning their necks, tossing their
antlers, and turning their heads.
General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and
-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs jumped high in the air, and shouted
to the old Chinaman, "They're running away! They're
running away!"

This frightened them so that they jumped quickly into a
drawer of the window-seat. Here they found three or four decks of
cards, not quite complete, and a little puppet theatre, which was
set up as well as it was possible to do. A play was in progress,
and all the diamond queens, heart queens, club queens, and spade
queens sat in front row and fanned themselves with the tulips
they held in their hands. Behind them the knaves lined up,
showing that they had heads both at the top and at the bottom, as
face cards do have. The play was all about two people, who were
not allowed to marry, and it made the shepherdess cry because it
was so like her own story.

"I can't bear to see any more," she said. "I must get out of
this drawer at once." But when they got back to the floor and
looked up at the table, they saw the old Chinaman was wide awake
now. Not only his head, but his whole body rocked forward. The
lower part of his body was one solid piece, you see.

"The old Chainman's coming!" cried the little
Shepherdess, who was so upset that she fell down on her porcelain
knees.

"I have an idea," said the chimney-sweeper. "We'll
hide in the pot-pourri vase in the corner. There we can rest upon
rose petals and lavender, and when he finds us we can throw salt
in his eyes."

"It's no use," she said. "Besides, I know the
pot-pourri vase was once the old Chainman's sweetheart, and
where there used to be love a little affection is sure to remain.
No, there's nothing for us to do but to run away into the
big wide world."

"Are you really so brave that you'd go into the wide
world with me?" asked the chimney-sweep. "Have you thought about
how big it is, and that we can never come back here?"

"I have," she said.

The chimney-sweep looked her straight in the face and said,
"My way lies up through the chimney. Are you really so brave that
you'll come with me into the stove, and crawl through the
stovepipe? It will take us to the chimney. Once we get there,
I'll know what to do. We shall climb so high that
they'll never catch us, and at the very top there's
an opening into the big wide world."

He led her to the stove door.

"It looks very black in there," she said. But she let him
lead her through the stove and through the stovepipe, where it
was pitch-black night.

"Now we've come to the chimney," he said. "And see!
See how the bright star shines over our heads."

A real star, high up in the heavens, shone down as if it
wished to show them the way. They clambered and scuffled, for it
was hard climbing and terribly steep-way, way up high! But he
lifted her up, held her safe, and found the best places for her
little porcelain feet. At last they reached the top of the
chimney, where they sat down. For they were so tired, and no
wonder!

Overhead was the starry sky, and spread before them were all
the housetops in the town. They looked out on the big wide world.
The poor shepherdess had never thought it would be like that. She
flung her little head against the chimney-sweep, and sobbed so
many tears that the gilt washed off her sash.

"This is too much," she said. "I can't bear it. The
wide world is too big. Oh! If I only were back on my table under
the mirror. I'll never be happy until I stand there again,
just as before. I followed you faithfully out into the world, and
if you love me the least bit you'll take me right
home."

The chimney-sweep tried to persuade her that it wasn't
sensible to go back. He talked to her about the old Chinaman, and
of
General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs,
but she sobbed so hard and kissed her chimney-sweep so much that
he had to do as she said, though he thought it was the wrong
thing to do.

So back down the chimney they climbed with great difficulty,
and they crawled through the wretched stovepipe into the dark
stove. Here they listened behind the door, to find out what was
happening in the room. Everything seemed quiet, so they opened
the door and-oh, what a pity! There on the floor lay the
Chinaman, in three pieces. When he had come running after them,
he tumbled off the table and smashed. His whole back had come off
in one piece, and his head had rolled into the corner.
General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs
was standing where he always stood, looking thoughtful.

"Oh, dear," said the little shepherdess, "poor old
grandfather is all broken up, and it's entirely our fault.
I shall never live through it." She wrung her delicate hands.

"He can be patched," said the chimney-sweep. "He can be
riveted. Don't be so upset about him. A little glue for his
back and a strong rivet in his neck, and he will be just as good
as new, and just as disagreeable as he was before."

"Will he, really?" she asked, as they climbed back to their
old place on the table.

"Here we are," said the chimney-sweep. "Back where we
started from. We could have saved ourselves a lot of
trouble."

"Now if only old grandfather were mended," said the little
shepherdess. "Is mending terribly expensive?"

He was mended well enough. The family had his back glued
together, and a strong rivet put through his neck. That made him
as good as new, except that never again could he nod his
head.

"It seems to me that you have grown haughty since your fall,
though I don't see why you should be proud of it,"
General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs
complained. "Am I to have her, or am I not?"

The chimney-sweep and the little shepherdess looked so
pleadingly at the old Chinaman, for they were deathly afraid he
would nod. But he didn't. He couldn't. And neither
did he care to tell anyone that, forever and a day, he'd
have to wear a rivet in his neck.

So the little porcelain people remained together. They
thanked goodness for the rivet in grandfather's neck, and
they kept on loving each other until the day they broke.